Akira Yuki
Akira Yuki (結城 晶, Yūki Akira) (born September 23, 1968)http://virtuafighter.com/vf4/akira/ is a fictional character and mascot of the Sega video game series Virtua Fighter. His fighting style is Bajiquan, a Chinese martial art (pronounced "Hakkyoku-ken" in Japanese). Canonically, he won the second World Fighting Tournament. Akira strives for perfection and will drive himself relentlessly to master his techniques. He seeks worthy opponents to fight in order to find flaws in his skills to further attain mastery. Gameplay-wise, Akira is considered to be an extremely advanced character to master. Story Virtua Fighter Bajiquan is one of the foremost Chinese martial arts. During the Second World War, the Japanese army developed their own techniques to improve their infantry's fighting ability. Akira Yuki is the grandson of the man who developed these techniques. Akira serves as the assistant instructor at Yuki Budokan (his family's dojo), and is known to be hot-blooded and impulsive by nature. He also can be naive and intemperate. After completing his training under his grandfather's tutelage at the age of 23, he went on a quest to test his abilities. Two years later, when he got word of the 1st World Fighting Tournament, he decided to enter and test his abilities. Virtua Fighter 2 Akira is the only person to whom the ultimate martial art of Bajiquan is handed down. Realizing that the last time he lacked experience; Akira is now testing the results of last year's training and practice. During the last Tournament, Akira was a bit too "enthusiastic" and his attitude was met with much disapproval. He was defeated and humiliated by Kage, and now he bears a grudge against him. Virtua Fighter 3 Realizing that he lacked experience from his failure to win the First World Fighting Tournament, Akira went through rigorous training to prepare himself for the Second World Fighting Tournament. Akira returned home, with the second tournament trophy. Yet as he was about to proclaim his victory, his grandfather told him, "Don't flatter yourself. You haven't mastered anything yet." In order to answer the question, "What is true strength?," Akira resolved to fight in the tournament once more. On the Third World Fighting Tournament, Akira’s main intentions were to show his grandfather and himself "true strength". Virtua Fighter 4 After Akira failed to win the tournament, he went back to Japan and told his grandfather about the disappointing results. With further encouragement from his grandfather, Akira decides to continue his training in the mountains. This time, Akira trained harder than ever, while trying to understand exactly what "true power" really is. However while training, Akira received an invitation for the 4th world tournament. Akira decides to join the tournament to test out the new skills he had learned and try to find the "real" power within him. Virtua Fighter 5 After losing to Kage-Maru in the Fourth World Fighting Tournament, Akira returned to the mountains to train harder than ever before. He began to doubt his previous training and could not understand how he had been defeated. One day he caught sight of a leaf floating downstream and he held his breath as it spun easily around a boulder, avoiding it neatly, and continuing on in the flow. He suddenly understood that he had been resisting the flow and he resumed his training with renewed confidence. Soon after, he decided to join the Fifth World Fighting Tournament. "Now I should be able to hold my own and more against him." Virtua Fighter Kids In Virtua Fighter Kids, Akira is depicted as a young boy (6 to 8 years old) and he lives at the dojo that he works in, Yuki Budokan. In his FMV movie he fights a giant warrior that wants to desecrate the dojo, which results in a large hole in the dojo wall. Determined to fix up the mess before his parents return home, he hammers it up but accidentally stubs his thumb. Character Relationships *Sees Kage-Maru as a rival when he was defeated by him in the first and fourth tournament. *Rival of Wolf Hawkfield. *Childhood friend of Aoi Umenokouji . *Possible rival of Goh Hinogami and/or Jean Kujo (both whom work for J6). *Defeated Dural. Other Appearances Fighters Megamix Akira appeared with the entire Virtua Fighter 2 cast in the Sega Saturn game Fighters Megamix. Along with Kids' Sarah, Kids' Akira is an unlockable playable character. Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing Akira, along with Jacky Bryant, appeared together as a playable racer in Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing. Jacky drives the OutRun-inspired "Red Lightning" while Akira is his passenger. Dead or Alive 5 Akira appears in the fighting game, Dead or Alive 5 with Sarah Bryant and Pai Chan as part of a partnership with Sega and the game's developers, Tecmo Koei & Team Ninja. Project X Zone Akira appears with Pai in the crossover game, Project X Zone, a Nintendo 3DS RPG featuring characters from Capcom, Namco Bandai, and SEGA. Other Media Virtua Fighter Anime In the Virtua Fighter anime, unlike his video game counterpart, Akira enjoys eating lots of food and slacking off. After being sent away from his grandfather (he won lots of tournaments, but with this, he forgot what is true fighting about, though he couldn't see the eight stars anymore), he begins his journey, hoping to see again the eight stars. After being defeated by Kage-Maru, when Eva goes away with Sarah, he takes into consideration what his grandpa said about fighting. In the second series, he lives with his grandfather in Japan, while he was about to have a re-match with Kage-Maru, he got attacked by the Oni-Maru Ninjas, right after Pai, Jacky and his friends came to visit him. After defeating Dural Gold and Eva Durix, in the end of the second season he sees once again the eight stars. Akira fights only when he sees people getting into trouble, but often gets into minor problems, such as when he accidentally touches Sarah Bryant's breasts or when he gives Pai Chan a kiss (which results in a beating). Throughout the series Akira and Pai begin to have strong feelings for each other. Akira was voiced by Shin-ichiro Miki in Japanese (the same voice actor from Virtua Fighter 2) and by Tony Schnur in English. Trivia *Akira won the second World Fighting Tournament. *Akira shares similarites (in origin, appearance, attitude and lifestyle) with Ryu from the famed Street Fighter series. *Ryo Hazuki, protagonist of the Shenmue series, was modeled upon Akira Yuki. *Akira's catchphrase is "Juunen hayaindayo!" which roughly translated to "You're ten years too early." Akira has used this phrase in every game since Virtua Fighter 1 and even in an ''Virtua Fighter 3TB'' Japanese Commercial. Eileen and Pai Chan both use variations of this phrase. Akira also uses this catchphrase in his reveal trailer from Dead or Alive 5. *''Dead or Alive'' creator and former Tecmo employee, Tomonobu Itagaki, has stated the character Akira Yuki being the inspiration for the Dead or Alive character Kokoro who debuted in Dead or Alive 4, released in 2005, over a decade after Akira's debut in the original ''Virtua Fighter''. Kokoro also uses Bajiquan as her fighting discipline, but is much like Aoi Umenokouji as well on the fact that she appears innocent and demure. In the E3 2012 trailer for Dead or Alive 5, Akira challenges Kokoro to a duel, which Kokoro accepts. *Akira is generally known to be one of the harder characters to master in the Virtua Fighter Roster which is uncommon for Fighting game protagonists. Usually they're to be one of the easier ones to play as such as Ryu from the Street Fighter ''series or Liu Kang from the ''Mortal Kombat series. However, the Mishimas from the Tekken franchise are also considered the more difficult characters to master in that particular series. Gallery Akira VF1.jpg|Akira from Virtua Fighter VF Remix Akira.png|Akira from Virtua Fighter Remix File:AVF2.jpg|Akira Yuki's profile from Virtua Fighter 2 Akira VF2P.jpg|Another Akira's profile from Virtua Fighter 2 Akira VF2.gif|Akira from Virtua Fighter 2 akira-congrats.gif|Akira's congratulations screen from Virtua Fighter 2 Akira Anime 2.jpg|Akira, without his bend, from Virtua Fighter Anime Akira Anime 3.jpg|Akira in Virtua Fighter Anime Akira Anime 4.jpg|Again Akira in Virtua Fighter Anime Akira Anime.jpg|Akira, with the entire cast of Virtua Fighter Anime characters, in the first Opening theme akira-kids-fightersmegamix-sprite_small.gif|Kid Akira sprite from Virtua Fighter Kids and Fighters Megamix akira-kids-fightersmegamix-sprite2_small.gif|Akira's second outfit from Virtua Fighter Kids and Fighters Megamix Kakira-2.jpg|Kid Akira from Virtua Fighter Kids akira-fightersmegamix-sprite_small.gif|Akira's sprite from Fighters Megamix akira-fightersmegamix-sprite2_small.gif|Akira's second outfit from Fighters Megamix akira_9_jpg.jpg|Akira performing the Stun Palm of Doom in Virtua Fighter CG Portraits akirav.jpg|Akira's portrait from Virtua Fighter 3 Image:AkiraVF4.jpg|Akira from Virtua Fighter 4 Image:AkiraVQ.jpg|Akira from Virtua Quest Image:AkiraVQ-2.jpg|Akira again from Virtua Quest Image:AkiraVF5.jpg|Akira from Virtua Fighter 5 akira-o1.gif|Akira's first outfit from Virtua Fighter 5 akira-o2.gif|Akira's second outfit from Virtua Fighter 5 akira-o3.gif|Akira's third outfit from Virtua Fighter 5 akira-o4.gif|Akira's fourth outfit from Virtua Fighter 5 AkiraPai.jpg|Akira Yuki and Pai Chan from Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown Red Lightning.png|Akira with Jacky in Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing DOA5 Akira Render.png|Akira in Dead or Alive 5 Project X Zone Akira.png|Akira in Project X Zone References Category:Characters Category:VF1 Characters Category:VF2 Characters Category:VF3 Characters Category:VF4 Characters Category:VF4E Characters Category:VF5 Characters Category:VF5R Characters